Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: runequester on September 24, 2010, 06:46:42 PM
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So I am giving myself til January to get this done, as we're a bit cash strapped right now, and there's quite a few trinkets Id need.
When the new year comes around, I want to see how long I can go with my 1200 as my main computer. Not out of religious reverence or anything. Just a fun experiment to do, and to learn as much as possible about my machine.
Might make for an interesting blog or something. We'll see.
The list of stuff to acquire as opportunity and cost permits:
USB interface, mainly for CD rom but itd be nice to have in general. Seems subway is the way to go there.
Wireless PCMCIA internet card. Pretty cheap.
Faster accelerator card. It seems that you can get 030's in the 40/50 mhz range with 16 or 32 megs of ram for not an arm and a leg, through softhut or amigakit.
An 060 would be nice but cost might be prohibitive.
Some sort of printer. Can source an old one so probably wont be too expensive.
I am imagining that a copy of the 3.9 workbench / OS might be a good idea as well.
What are my computing needs?
Web browsing
I've been messing around with ibrowse in UAE and it seems most of my internet needs would be fine as far as that goes. Its mostly message forums really.
Im prepared for it to be pretty slow, and things to look funny. Figure thats part of the experience.
IM
What are the best options for instant messaging ? I am particularly looking for things that are aim and msn compatible. IRC is obviously well covered.
Gaming
Most of my gaming is old amiga games anyways, so no fuss there.
Word processing and other "office" stuff
I rarely need to do work stuff from home, so not too fussed. My main needs here are basic handouts for some of the tabletop gaming I do, maybe some data base stuff. Should be well served by the old amiga apps here.
Creative stuff
Plenty of fun old graphics and music apps here, that I want to do dig into again.
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So putting my thoughts together a bit, before starting any sort of blog.
Instant messaging: Looks like MSN and ICQ won't be an issue. Still poking around to see if there's a client for AIM or Yahoo out there.
I imagine gmail chat will be nogo, which is too bad, but I have my phone for that, if all else fails.
For games, there's tons in a multitude of genres, so I should be able to keep entertained there. Particularly want to play through some of the great old adventure games and RPGs again, as well as play some that I never got around to.
A lot of great strategy games which is my preferred genre of games, too.
Booted up Final Writer and spent some time getting used to it. Its pretty slick, though the lack of a high resolution will take some time getting used to.
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I think you can do it!
Despite what what you read, iBrowse is compatible with far more sites than not.
Don't forget streaming audio and Mp3s. MasPlayer or equiv.
IIRC, Final Writer and Final Data will promote to higher resolution including RTG.
Certainly the details of your blog with be an interesting read in terms of Amiga compatibility with modern computing.
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I think you can do it!
Thanks! :)
Don't forget streaming audio and Mp3s. MasPlayer or equiv.
Until I can get some more RAM, I imagine MP3s might be rough. Any experience there ?
IIRC, Final Writer and Final Data will promote to higher resolution including RTG.
I assume Final Data is a spreadsheet app ? Is that what you'd recommend ?
Certainly the details of your blog with be an interesting read in terms of Amiga compatibility with modern computing.
Thanks! I imagine over the next week, I'll get it started as an actual blog. FOr now, this thread will do as a place to gather ideas and seek information.
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Excuse me, but why bother? Use it as a games machine, there is hardly any development on classic Amiga.
Load it up as a backup computer.
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Excuse me, but why bother? Use it as a games machine, there is hardly any development on classic Amiga.
Load it up as a backup computer.
Because it'll be a fun experiment.
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I enjoy experimenting too, but going that retro baffles me.
And I don't get the whole emulation thing. I mean using a more powerful system to run old software. Why?
I do agree with the one poster who claimed to be a Linux fanboy. I've loaded Unbuntu on to my Mac and I prefer it to OSX.
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runequester: Ah, never mind the naysayers.... Do it 'cuz you want to... (Hey, how many people do a lot of 3D rendering on thier miggies anymore? I do.)
To elaborate on the software mentioned... First, many programs can be promoted using a tool like NewMode (aminet).
Final Calc is actually the spreadsheet
Final Writer (WP)
Final Data (database)
Which program is 'best'? No answer... it's all up to personal opinion. You could try searching the forums here for 'Best ______ program' (fill in the blank :) )
As for playing MP3's, RAM is important..... but an accel. is even more important. Personally, I would want an '060 to play MP3's decently. (My WarpEngine 40/40 4000 has trouble with many MP3's...)
My .02...
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as far as emulation, I just wanted to test out the apps first before goign through the trouble of installing on my real 'miggy.
As to why Im doing it? Because it'll be fun. Im not selling my linux PC or getting rid of it or anything. It'll be there for whenever I decide the experiment has gone long enough.
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@ runequester
AmigAIM (http://amigaim.missingpiece.com/index.html)
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Sounds like a fun experiment... I guess most things that you'll miss will come done to being just nuisances (audio streaming. mp3, ...). To be two big missed things IMHO are the webbrowser and data exchange with office software. Most E-banking sites on this side of the ocean make heavy use of SSL (https) and Javascript.
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Until I can get some more RAM, I imagine MP3s might be rough. Any experience there ?
Back some years ago (maybe 10.... wow) I purchased an external MP3 decoder for my Amiga 1200 desktop. I think it plugged into the parallel port but I'm not too sure about that.
Unfortunately it didn't work and I never did get it resolved with the Amiga dealer I bought it off, so it's long since been discarded. However, mine was an isolated issue I think as the devices were known to have worked and been in use on other people's machines. It might be worth trying to find one! Then you should be able to play MP3s no problem. I'm not sure if it'd work on a stock machine (it might do) but certainly an '030 should cope I reckon.
Regards using the machine as your main computer, it wasn't actually all that long ago I gave up my Amiga as being my main machine. Granted I had a fully loaded towered up A1200 with BPPC and Mediator with graphics cards, sound card etc etc so the experience was far more pleasant than you're likely to get from a slightly expanded desktop. But the Amiga is still quite useable as a main machine to be honest. I don't have any problem with anyone who says they still do use their Amiga as their machine of choice, even if it is an old classic! Amigas are fun.
I gave mine up as a main machine in the end because of software. I do a lot of home programming for microcontrollers and I also do a lot of hardware design at home too. All the software I need for these tasks is available pretty much exclusively on Windows (with the exception of my schematic/PCB CAD program which I think can be used on linux too). So, in the end, it became necessary to demote my Amiga to purely a hobby machine.
Good luck with your experiment, it will be interesting to see how long you can go!
I reckon... < 1 week ;-)
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My wife does most of our banking either on her powerbook laptop or my desktop, so I'll be able to cheat there :)
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Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Don't forget to update your amiga.org blog (http://www.amiga.org/forums/blog.php?u=6956) :)
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Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Don't forget to update your amiga.org blog (http://www.amiga.org/forums/blog.php?u=6956) :)
yeah, going to try and get started on the formal blog tonight.
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Really looking forward to the blog on this!
Also, I notice a lot of demo's are using ADPCM for their tracks, which apparently has a lot less processor overhead to play than mp3, but similar sound quality. File sizes are about double. You might want to convert some of your music to this for the experiment.
eg: Lightshaft soundrack (by elude) zips down to 7,890K (16 bit, 230 kbps).
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Really looking forward to the blog on this!
Also, I notice a lot of demo's are using ADPCM for their tracks, which apparently has a lot less processor overhead to play than mp3, but similar sound quality. File sizes are about double. You might want to convert some of your music to this for the experiment.
eg: Lightshaft soundrack (by elude) zips down to 7,890K (16 bit, 230 kbps).
I'll look into that. THank you for the heads up!
Unfortunately, it'll probably be another month or so before I can get the internet set up, and I am sure configuring the TCP/IP stuff will be an adventure in itself :)
Going to start the process small though as we go along.
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Excuse me, but why bother? Use it as a games machine, there is hardly any development on classic Amiga.
Load it up as a backup computer.
Why use any old computer? Because it is fun.
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Excuse me, but why bother? Use it as a games machine, there is hardly any development on classic Amiga.
Load it up as a backup computer.
There are diverse motivations on this site, not everyone is a gamer (I never would have found the Amiga or cared for its unique OS and hardware, if I had approached purely from the game direction).
@ runequester
Apparently, MasPlayers have again become hard to find, but, they work well even on stock A600s. There is another hardware Mp3 decoder that works with the Amiga and C64, too. I forget the name as I have no experience with it.
You will probably want the ram (acceleration, too) to improve web browsing. That's the catagory that continuously sprouts new standards and complexity (some call it innovative). Everything else you want to do will probably involve less compromise.
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I'm performing the same experiment with an AmigaKit A1200 (Escom). If I may suggest, an optical drive is just impractical when used with USB. I installed the internal USB controller and I LOVE it for any thing other than CD-DVD (I simply couldn't find any USB optical drive that would work - plus, most people report that it is just WAY TOO SLOW). So, I'm in the process of installing a SATA laptop cd-dvd drive using a 4 way IDE buffer with a SATA interface. I bought a SATA laptop drive which should work very well. I also bought an accelerator and an Indivision AGA. The Indivision is giving me fits when used with an Escom A1200. Lots of color jitter after it warms up. Now, apparently, I have to completely tear down everything an perform this... http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41376 before I can get the IDE buffer and CD-DVD installed. I do have the unit operating on the internet with no problem but the browser I'm using has lots of page formatting issues. My goal is pretty much the same as your - use as a practical computer. I did buy Word Perfect some time back which I hope will work as a WP. The easiest way to print it seems is with an IP addressed network printer. There's a good program on Aminet. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to following your blog! Cheers!
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gizmo, before you go hacking away at a perfectly good A1200, try and see if you can avoid or fix the problem in software. A palette with 0,0,0 black and 255,255,255 white will cause an A1200 to have all sorts of graphical corruption and glitches in some modes, like DBLPAL and HighGFX. If you experience the same corruption in PAL or NTSC modes it may be a hardware problem though. Also, do you have AmiCDFS installed? If you don't have a CD Filesystem, Poseidon won't be able to access a CD/DVD drive that's connected even if it detects it.
Try these:
http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/BitmapShades
http://aminet.net/package/disk/cdrom/amicdfs240
runequester, I use my A1200 online every single day so if you need any advice join one of the Amiga IRC channels and have a look for me. For those websites that IBrowse can't view, there's always iCab under ShapeShifter. I'm going to try getting this all set up nicely today and see if it's a viable option for web browsing on a 030/AGA machine.
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I'm performing the same experiment with an AmigaKit A1200 (Escom). If I may suggest, an optical drive is just impractical when used with USB. I installed the internal USB controller and I LOVE it for any thing other than CD-DVD (I simply couldn't find any USB optical drive that would work - plus, most people report that it is just WAY TOO SLOW). So, I'm in the process of installing a SATA laptop cd-dvd drive using a 4 way IDE buffer with a SATA interface. I bought a SATA laptop drive which should work very well. I also bought an accelerator and an Indivision AGA. The Indivision is giving me fits when used with an Escom A1200. Lots of color jitter after it warms up. Now, apparently, I have to completely tear down everything an perform this... http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41376 before I can get the IDE buffer and CD-DVD installed. I do have the unit operating on the internet with no problem but the browser I'm using has lots of page formatting issues. My goal is pretty much the same as your - use as a practical computer. I did buy Word Perfect some time back which I hope will work as a WP. The easiest way to print it seems is with an IP addressed network printer. There's a good program on Aminet. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to following your blog! Cheers!
Maybe we can share some experiences :)
Someone else suggested a IDE buffer as well for CD ROM, so maybe that'll be the way to go. Honestly, the CD ROM will be fairly limited use, its more of a nice thing to have.
Obviously if I go with 3.9, it'd be required.
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runequester, I use my A1200 online every single day so if you need any advice join one of the Amiga IRC channels and have a look for me. For those websites that IBrowse can't view, there's always iCab under ShapeShifter. I'm going to try getting this all set up nicely today and see if it's a viable option for web browsing on a 030/AGA machine.
hey awesome :)
I am prepared for things to be pretty slow. My main web needs will be some web forums (this one being one of them) and a few others.
I imagine if images aren't loaded, the text bits shouldn't be too bad.
An indirect benefit of the experiment will be to hopefully cut down the amount of time fapping around on the internet.
Instant Messaging will be more of a "must" for me, but I imagine that wont be too resource intensive.
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gizmo, before you go hacking away at a perfectly good A1200, try and see if you can avoid or fix the problem in software. A palette with 0,0,0 black and 255,255,255 white will cause an A1200 to have all sorts of graphical corruption and glitches in some modes, like DBLPAL and HighGFX. If you experience the same corruption in PAL or NTSC modes it may be a hardware problem though. Also, do you have AmiCDFS installed? If you don't have a CD Filesystem, Poseidon won't be able to access a CD/DVD drive that's connected even if it detects it.
Thx Cammy, to tell you the truth, I havn't patched anything in software after installing the Indivision (just went searching for the obvious problem I was having immediately after installing the Indivision). I connected the machine up to an LCD right after getting the Indivision installed and have the exact same symtoms described in the link I posted (Escom Unit). I did read your previous software suggestions in prior posts regarding this and that's exactly why I didn't just go tearing into it. I havn't even got it to work in 1024 x 768 - (easiest way to do that? Software patch?) - so that I can view WB in full screen on the LCD. You know what happens? I search, find the answers, run out of time, forget where I found the answer, and so on... I have a million bookmars in my Amiga tab! hahahaha! This is why we need an A to Z! BTW, yes Cammy... I have AmiCDFS installed. Now that I remember I did get the CD working but there was now way to hook into MakeCD burning siftware.
@Runequester
Yea, comparing and sharing notes is a great idea... I'll also start a blog. I would like to start a "How to do" list from A to Z. Another thing I've learned along the way... when starting WB install from WB3.1 and progressing to WB3.9, there are a lot of software patches that are taken care of withing WB3.9. Plus, AmigaKit showed me a great shortcut to getting a USB flash drive working right after you install your USB adapter that makes it much easier to get software installed that doesn't fit on a floppy disk. Get the flash drive working and simply transfer software to Amiga. I really need to (keep my current installed HDD - Unless I want to go with super duper cool desktop icons - Radioactive Workbench) pop in another HDD and start the whole process over again with documentation on a blog from "A to where I am now in the process). I hope Cammy and Rebel-CD32 get a blog going for Radioactive WB! I want to get to this point too http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=580336 . I'll have to work that into the whole install process. Sometimes I wish I could save each stage of the install process to a virtual machine so that I could go back to any preferred build. Hmmm, I probably can with a flash drive - just don't know how to save a machine brick build. Anyway.... this will be fun! Ciao!
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As Cammy points out, shapeshifter can be really handy (and fun).
When I was doing my HND in graphic design, I could not afford a Mac, but my Amiga handily filled the gap with Illustrator and photoshop through shapeshifter.
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I've got iCab running on my A1200/030 but having trouble connecting to the net through vlink. I get a network error any time I try connecting to a website, but I haven't got or tried any extra internet software yet, so if I can't work this out soon I'll try Nutscrape or something.
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@runequester
Great idea and I'll read your blog with interest. I have no choice but to use Windoze, my University software only runs on MS bloatware, what a shame.
Anyway, good luck with it and I hope you have a lot of fun.
BTW, is your forum tag a reference to the tabletop RPG "Runequest" by any chance?
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Cammy beat me to it. I was going to suggest iCab to suppliment browsing issues. It's not perfect, but its probably the best 68k browser out there for any system. Some years back when I only had amithlon/os3.9 and my a1200/bppc/grex/etc system I used it not infrequently and I found it to be a pretty nice browser. As for yahoo/aim clients there's always jabberwocky, which supports a nice amount of different IM protocols (yahoo/msn/aim/etc).
I had a lot of fun becomming "amiga" only again back when Amithlon was released, and although I'd always considered myself fairly amiga literate being restricted soley to the format taught me quite a bit. It was surprising to me at the time just how capable amiga os is, and there's workarounds for most stuff that on the surface there appears to be bo solution for. Working out how to do stuff that at 1st appears not possible was a lot of fun. Having said all this though Amithlon opened up extra doors for me that mightnt be options on an a1200 (I barely touched my bppc based a1200 for example, such was the contrast), but with some time and effort Id imagine most things can be done on "real" hardware if you put in the effort. Even video has (cumbersome) workarounds if youre that keen (and have decent amounts of harddrive space) :)
Have fun :-)
@Cammy
If memory serves me correctly you need to use the mac os network stack with shapeshifter rather than the amiga one.
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@runequester
Great idea and I'll read your blog with interest. I have no choice but to use Windoze, my University software only runs on MS bloatware, what a shame.
Anyway, good luck with it and I hope you have a lot of fun.
BTW, is your forum tag a reference to the tabletop RPG "Runequest" by any chance?
Yes, yes it is :)
Runequest to me was always like the amiga. Far superior to the mainstream but just didn't make it the same way. At least its still being published.
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aaand, first blog post is up.
Not a ton of stuff yet but you gotta start somewhere right?
http://www.amiga.org/forums/blog.php?b=213
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Yes, yes it is :)
Runequest to me was always like the amiga. Far superior to the mainstream but just didn't make it the same way. At least its still being published.
Classic game. Played RQ2 a lot when I was younger. We stick to Call of Cthulhu these days...
Back on topic: Your amiga will probably web browse faster than my laptop. I find flash anims can bring my PC to it's knee's if I forget flash block. Something an Amiga won't have to worry about.
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Great idea. I'll be following your blog with interest.
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I'll be following this with interest too - as I'm in the process of doing exactly the same.
I can't see any need for a CDROM though; once you're networked, what's the point?
Steve
(using A1200 68030 50Mhz 16Mb RAM, NE20000 PCMCIA and AmiTCP as daily machine)
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Also, I notice a lot of demo's are using ADPCM for their tracks, which apparently has a lot less processor overhead to play than mp3, but similar sound quality. File sizes are about double. You might want to convert some of your music to this for the experiment.
I can also provide a CLI-player for IMA adpcm files that works with Paula (and AHI as soon as I get some small bugs fixed). It should work perfectly on an 030 if you have enough memory, as it doesn't currently stream from disk.
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I'll be following this with interest too - as I'm in the process of doing exactly the same.
I can't see any need for a CDROM though; once you're networked, what's the point?
Steve
(using A1200 68030 50Mhz 16Mb RAM, NE20000 PCMCIA and AmiTCP as daily machine)
The main need would be for installing 3.9 I guess
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I'll be following this with interest too - as I'm in the process of doing exactly the same.
I can't see any need for a CDROM though; once you're networked, what's the point?
Steve
(using A1200 68030 50Mhz 16Mb RAM, NE20000 PCMCIA and AmiTCP as daily machine)
With a CD/DVD writer the point is, you can easily backup your HDs, you can create, edit, remix & rip audio CDs, store lots of data, pics, gfx etc.. that you can then easily swap between one Amiga to the other.
There are ton's of use's for A CD/DVD drive on the Amiga, I would be totally lost without them, never used a floppy for years now... :)
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The main need would be for installing 3.9 I guess
You are correct sir!
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What a brilliant idea :) And I agree, done for purely for the fun of it!! :)
That's what attracted me back to having a tinker with my Amiga - some fun and the chance to see some of the incredible works of ingenuity people have put into the Amiga scene over the years -for example, what a genuis idea, a hardware MP3 decoder - to make it possible to listen to MP3s on the weaker processor machines!
Someone mentioned creating a A-Z of FAQ or how to's, that would really help me, as when I was a kid playing with my Amiga the most technical thing I managed to do was set up cross dos to take work into school so I really have no idea! :)
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I mean using a more powerful system to run old software. Why?
I do agree with the one poster who claimed to be a Linux fanboy. I've loaded Unbuntu on to my Mac and I prefer it to OSX.
Oh, if you like Linux you should understand it: emacs is antiquated - it doesn´t integrate to well with modern software and has cryptic key combos. All of what emacs can do can be accomplished with more modern, more specialized software. Same goes for LaTeX and bash. And if you don´t use any of these - are you sure you actually like Linux, or just Ubuntu/Gnome/KDE?
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I love learning how to set up new things, and then share my findings with others wanting to do the same thing. I plan on writing a bunch of tutorials using what I've learned, and ultimately put them into a PDF that can be downloaded and printed out as a guidebuook, as well as hosting the pages online in HTML format on a website for anyone to browse through. Some day, huh!
For now, I have just got a fresh, fully updated install of MacOS 7.6.1 on my A1200, ready to start again going online (previously I tried some butchered 7.5.5 install from someone but couldn't connect to anything). Since all these files are available from Apple's website, but it takes hours to install it all and update it and then update it again and then update it once more, as well as sorting through and disabling the extension that was causing it to crash on booting (AppleShare) and updating that too, I'll provide the fully installed, but unaltered (apart from disabling some unnecessary extensions that can be enabled any time later) ShapeShifter hardfile to anyone else wanting to try running Mac software and games on their Amiga without having to go through all the trouble of setting it up. It's legal since Apple provides all this software freely, you only have to provide your own Macintosh ROM file and download ShapeShifter from Aminet and you're ready to go.
This is just one little project I'm working on, all the other things are much more AmigaOS-based. But yeah, I think the fact that you can run MacOS just as well as it runs on a real Mac, but the Mac can't run AmigaOS the same way shows which was the better computer. :)
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I love learning how to set up new things, and then share my findings with others wanting to do the same thing. I plan on writing a bunch of tutorials using what I've learned, and ultimately put them into a PDF that can be downloaded and printed out as a guidebuook, as well as hosting the pages online in HTML format on a website for anyone to browse through. Some day, huh!
Great! This has been needed for a long time.
It would be interesting to set it up as a Wiki that everyone can simply add new topics. Maybe it would grow like Aminet did. ;)
I often wonder how many ppl have picked up Amiga hardware with no manuals or docs and simply find it too difficult to pursue.
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That sounds like a great idea. A repository of knowledge for the amiga :)
In the path to getting set up with every bit of software I need, I installed FinalCalc which looks simple enough to use.
I think I got FBlit set up too, though Im not sure if the difference is all that great. Things are a bit snappier I guess.
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Well, the "Buy / Sell" button on Amiga.org is not used much anyway IMHO, let's request a change to a decent wiki where registered amiga.org members can edit the pages ;-)
It's not hard to setup one, but integration with the amiga.org site and user database would make it a great setup.
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Great! This has been needed for a long time.
It would be interesting to set it up as a Wiki that everyone can simply add new topics. Maybe it would grow like Aminet did. ;)
I often wonder how many ppl have picked up Amiga hardware with no manuals or docs and simply find it too difficult to pursue.
Sounds like a great plan, I would have somewhere to go before asking loads of silly questions! lol
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I don't think it's a good idea to start on something new when we could just contribute to what already exists here - http://wiki.abime.net/
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good luck with the 1200 many years ogo after few yeras not using my blizzard ppc card
tryed the internet again using owb with classic os 4.0
was okay
trouble with using the classic 1200 there good and bad the good first it feels like orginal amiga does using the custom chips etc .
u have advantage using a 030 cpu and fast ram this always good anyways means u can
use alot more classic software , for wirless cards sounds good l just use pcmcia network
card with wire .
just use jahc msn program its the best
good luck with the 1200 the web pages look bit funny and some sites arent so useable
but just give it a go see how u like it
am working on my 1200 at the moment 020 4 meg ram
ps 060 card whould be nice wanted one year or so ago damm the selling for way
to much money though not sure know.. for games 030 cards where the better bet.
l brought a buffered ide card plugs into ide port if you add your 1200 mb into
tower case u can just run the cdrom (ide) of that use idefix software
thats if you can find amiga designed tower case in austrila u need one as the mb is
diffrent shape and has no mounting points .
years ago brought a tower kit from eyetech as shiping costs to nz way to expensive for me , which basically u use bottom half your 1200 tray and get pc full tower
not sure u want that these days bit bulky anyways l think still got the backplane
l have to check if you want that no good to me as sold my blizzaard ppc card
okay good luck
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I thought about the tower option, but it seems like it'll be far too much trouble and cost for the result.
It'd almost end up cheaper just looking for a 4000 Tower at that rate, and that'd come with an 040 already :)
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Check with your bank if they offer internet banking for mobile phones.
My bank did use java for authention to get to the internetbank services, so I could not use it on MorphOS either.
I did contact the bank, but they said that it was their only option. No java - no banking.
But then I subscribed to their cellphone banking services and they sent me an SMS with an URL. Then I retyped the URL in the OWB browser, and then I could log in and use a simplyfied version it - without java. The page looks very simple, and I guess it might work even with IBrowse.
btw, isnt Netsurf available for 68k as well? Not sure about the requirements though.
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And I don't get the whole emulation thing. I mean using a more powerful system to run old software. Why?
I don't like emulation, but it has some advantages: costs nothing, takes no extra space, consumes less power, easy to configure (HDD), extremely fast (except when emulating newer systems like PS2), etc..
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Netsurf requires a Retargetable Graphics Card, only in 16bit mode, which means it won't run in AGA.
I have been using iCab to browse some CSS sites on my 030 A1200, and with CSS enabled it's certainly slow at transforming the pages after they have loaded, CSS seems to be a very bulky addition to HTML designed for a world with much faster CPUs.
Still, it's pretty good that Mac OS and games run so well on the A1200 through ShapeShifter. I have talked to a few people about my experiences, and many people seem to only remember trying ShapeShifter with either the built-in video drivers (extremely slow) or other older ones from Aminet which aren't much faster. When I first installed it, I saw how slow it was... moving the mouse pointer around on screen was like a slideshow! But then I installed a replacement for PrepareEmul and a much newer video driver (both written by Thomas) and WOW! I have what feels like a full speed 030 Mac. Sure it won't play games as smooth as it would if you had a real Chunky mode (like with a RTG card or Grafitti) but it's actually usable!
Does anyone remember the game Links on the Amiga? It's a golf game that runs in 4,096 colours on classic Amigas. Well Links Pro is a newer and nicer looking version of the game, but it never came out for Amigas. But it plays like a dream on my 030 A1200 in 640x480 in 256 colours!
Sorry for rambling, but I don't think I'll EVER run out of stuff to play and muck around with on my Amigas. If anyone else wants to try, I'm very willing to help out since I've just gone through all of the setting up myself.
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But then I installed a replacement for PrepareEmul and a much newer video driver (both written by Thomas) and WOW! I have what feels like a full speed 030 Mac. Sure it won't play games as smooth as it would if you had a real Chunky mode (like with a RTG card or Grafitti) but it's actually usable!
I assume it's using MMU based refresh? Before I got an RTG card, I did try a demo of the Savage EVD that was PPC enabled. That thing really shifted pixels.
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Yeah, that's right it's MMU-based, just like the new experimental video driver for Basilisk in the news item. I tried the SavageAGA demo driver, which is limited to 512x384 (which is actually quite a nice mode if you have an Indivision), but it still wasn't as fast as this new driver.
I have been playing Warcraft II all day on my AGA 030/28 with 32MB RAM (16 for MacOS, the rest for AmigaOS) and it's perfectly playable! Scrolling around the map isn't super smooth, but you wouldn't expect it to be. Playing the game and watching the little dudes move around the map is just as fast as it should be.
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I used shapeshifter years ago. It was very fast with Picasso (I was told faster than real 030 Macs). I gave up on it when I could not get it to work with my then-new 060. I have, in the years since, rescued a few older Macs. I sort of like the look of the pizza-box macs.
I thought Basilisk superceded/replaced Shapeshifter. Has Shapeshifter leap-frogged ahead?
EDIT: Classic Macintosh may have the best version of the game Othello compared to any platform. It was called Reversi - the Eclipse. :)